‘“What do I want to let go of?” you might ask yourself. “And what do I want to give myself to?”.’ Photo: Graduates at St Andrews
Learning curve: Barbara Davey offers graduates a Quaker encounter
‘Wholeness and a rich life doesn’t mean perfection’
Quakers were new to the team when I joined the chaplaincy at the University of St Andrews a few years ago: I had no clearly defined role to follow. With the support of my Local Meeting, I hoped to be able to offer a Quakerly presence to the life of the university in whatever ways might open, and my involvement has been surprising and fruitful for me. Perhaps for others too!
I’ve been involved now in plenty of services at St Salvator’s, the medieval university chapel in the centre of the town, offering Quaker-inspired prayers and readings on a variety of occasions. But I was nevertheless taken aback when the chaplain invited me recently to give an address at one of the early morning services of thanksgiving held each day during graduation week. I thought long and hard before accepting and took advice from Friends, not least on sourcing an appropriate accompanying Bible reading!
Here’s what I came up with, and although standing there in the pulpit did feel uncomfortable, that’s no bad thing. The experience as a whole was a rich one, and I was glad of the opportunity, the ripples still spreading. For my title I took ‘What canst thou say?’, and the reading was from John 4:5-15, in which Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well.
I’m so glad to be with you here today, and I’d like to offer heartfelt congratulations to the students who’ll be graduating later. My warmest good wishes also to those of you who’ve offered them steadfast support over the years. May the day be full of joy for you all!
‘Wherever you stand, be the spirit of that place.’ I’ve been holding fast to those lines from Rumi, the Sufi poet and mystic, while preparing for today. Our Quaker worship is centred on gathered stillness: I’m not so familiar with pulpits and preaching! All I can do is prayerfully trust that I will indeed be truthful to the spirit of this place. I thank you for your upholding.
And thank you for the reading from the Gospel of John, leading us into my reflection around the theme ‘What canst thou say?’
It’s a wonderful passage, isn’t it, with its evocation of the living water, a spring gushing up to eternal life; there are significant aspects of the story, too, about risk-taking and breaking conventions, so I urge you to read on and see how the narrative unfolds. But what drew me to wanting to hear it with you this morning was the simple, domestic and transformative encounter that is at its heart: the nature of God’s love revealed as the Samaritan woman and Jesus engage directly one with another… a moment of grace, an opening.
I’d like to share with you another encounter, written by Margaret Fell, from Cumbria, in 1652. With the same gospel story eye-witness clarity, Margaret describes hearing George Fox, an early Quaker, in what she later calls ‘the steeplehouse’, Ulverston Church. Fox stood up upon his seat or form, she writes, and spoke with great passion, of the scriptures, and how that Christ was the Light of the world and lighteth every man that cometh into the world and so on. But it’s Fox’s final words that devastate Margaret: ‘Christ saith this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of Light, and hast walked in the Light, and what thou speakest, is it inwardly from God?’
‘This opened me’, she says, ‘so it cut me to the heart… I cried in my spirit to the Lord. “We are all thieves… we have taken the Scriptures in words and know nothing of them in ourselves’.’’
Margaret closes with a phrase that I cherish: ‘I received the truth in the love of it’. This places love and truth at the very centre of her new understanding. I sense them myself as touchstones – love and truth as two weather-worn, world-weary boulders. If I place my fingers on them, they will ground me.
As a result of this opening, Margaret’s life began to take a different path. Undoubtedly there was risk-taking involved, and breaking with conventions. Each of us is unique, precious, a child of God. I like to think that, after this encounter, Margaret was strengthened in her uniqueness and in realising her potential.
Quakers are fond of using the word ‘openings’ as both insights and beginnings, and I’m mindful that our graduating students are themselves at a threshold: an ending and a beginning. That can be a rich insight, in itself, the way endings and beginnings are so interwoven, and if the sense of an ending might seem overwhelming once the celebrations have settled, its worth reflecting on how wholeness and a rich life doesn’t mean perfection. It might mean encompassing occasional emptiness, or brokenness even, as an integral part of our life.
‘What do I want to let go of?’ you might ask yourself. ‘And what do I want to give myself to?’
Listening was at the heart of Margaret Fell’s life-changing experience and maybe before you rush into telling your life what you intend to do with it, you’ll make space to listen to what it intends to do with you. There might be some surprises, especially if you keep within your reach those two great touchstones: love and truth.
Parker J Palmer, a Quaker from the US, talks of coming to a place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need. Each of us will have a different understanding of this. May you find yours. What canst thou say?
In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the woman at the well with whom we began is venerated as a saint with the name of Photine, meaning ‘luminous’.
That name Photine, Luminous, resonates beautifully with the final line of a meditation I often return to, and I’d like to offer it to you now, as a parting gift: In the Light walk, and ye will shine. In the Light walk, and ye will shine.
